So far in the Syrian civil war, I have come across two Moroccan ex-Gitmo detainees fighting in Syria. One of them was killed during the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham-led [ISIS] offensive in Latakia during the summer, whose sole aim was to strike a symbolic victory against the Assad regime by capturing and ethnically cleansing Assad’s ancestral village of Qardaḥa, while clearing out a number of Alawite localities on the way. The goal was to reach Qardaḥa by Eid al-Fiṭr (as Sheikh Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wanted) so that the mujahideen could hold prayers in the village.

The Moroccan ex-Gitmo detainee killed in question was known by the nom de guerre of Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi. One of the first local Syrian pro-ISIS outlets to report his death was Maysar, based in Aleppo and using the FSA flag in its logo but ideologically aligned with ISIS. […]

The following biography of him was given by Maysar: “The martyr Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi a fighter in Afghanistan who was detained in Guantánamo then imprisoned in the Maghreb [Morocco], and then attained martyrdom in the land of Islam: Syria. May God accept him.”

Initial speculation might have suggested that the detainee was one Abdul Latif Nasir, who has used this pseudonym, However, Abdul Latif remains imprisoned. Indeed, the true identity of this Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi has remained a mystery until now, but I heard this month from a number of private pro-ISIS sources that the man in question is actually Mohammed al-‘Alami. This ex-detainee’s biography matches that of the Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi of interest. […]

The second Moroccan ex-Gitmo detainee in question is one Ibrahim bin Shakaran. He is actually the one who gives the funeral eulogy for Abu Hamza al-Maghrebi and is described in the video as the leader of Harakat Sham al-Islam.

A well-known al-Qa’ida veteran, he is said to have fought in the Hindu Kush and Tora Bora mountain ranges of Afghanistan. He was then arrested by the Americans and transferred to Guantánamo, subsequently spending three years in prisons in Morocco.